NOVOSIBIRSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th October, 2020) The head of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said that the consequences of industrial accidents that occurred in the Norilsk industrial region in 2020 must be eliminated as soon as possible.
On Monday, Patrushev spoke at a meeting in Novosibirsk devoted to security issues in the regions of the Siberian Federal District. Measures to ensure environmental safety in Siberia were one of the main topics of the meeting.
"Failure by the owners of hazardous production facilities to comply with mandatory requirements in the field of industrial safety, weak control and inefficiency of the existing system for preventing accidental oil and oil products spills have led to three industrial accidents in the Norilsk region this year. It is necessary to ensure the elimination of the consequences of these accidents as soon as possible," Patrushev said noting the enormous damage to the environment caused by these accidents.
On May 29, some 21,000 tonnes of diesel leaked out of a fuel tank at the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company's Thermal Power Plant No. 3 and seeped into a nearby river. According to Nornickel, which owns the power plant where the accident took place, the spill was caused by melting permafrost, which destabilized the supports of the fuel tank. The emergency services have announced having localized the spill. Russia's Rosprirodnadzor environmental watchdog has estimated the incurred damage at approximately $2 billion. The company said that it was contesting the amount of damage to the environment caused by the fuel spill.
Other leakage incidents that recently took place in Norilsk region include the oil spill on August 7, when the water-fuel mixture got into the Ambarnya River during the clean-up of the May fuel spill.
On July 12, a pipeline depressurized when jet fuel was being pumped from a barge to a production warehouse located in the vicinity of the village of Tukhard in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. As a result, fuel spilled onto the territory of a helicopter landing site and the adjacent area, seeping later into two lakes.
